Barcelona Night Life: Bars and Clubs
Everyone assumes that I wanted to study abroad in Barcelona because of the night life. Although the party scene is a fun aspect of Barcelona, it is definitely not the reason I chose to study abroad here, however it does make for many memorable nights.
Study abroad students love going to Port Olympic to the clubs such as Opium, Pacha, or Shôko. If you know the names of the club promoters it is easy to get into a club for a night for loud club music, flashing lights, expensive drinks, aggressive men, sweaty dancing, and pick pockets. Needless to say, I am not a fan of the clubs and i choose to spend my nights on the weekends in bars.
One of my favorite bars to go to on Thursday nights with my friends Otilia and Audrey is an Irish pub called George Payne. When we first walked in it looked like a small bar but once we got past the small bar at the front, the place opens into a huge room with high ceilings and a double staircase leading to a second floor that overlooks the first floor. The bar resembles a church with its gold details, decorated walls, and stained glass window at the top of the stairs. Starting at 10:30 on Thursday nights is karaoke night and lucky for me, I made a couple of girl friends here who love to sing and dance as much as I do. Every Thursday night on a weekend when we are not traveling we go to George Payne and sing a song or two. It is a fun night to stand around the bar and sing along with the other performers as they stand on the double staircase that is used as a stage and shout lyrics into the microphone. Each time we go it is always difficult to think of a song that we want to sing because we have so many favorites.
One of my favorite nights was when we sang a song in Spanish and another in Romanian. That week in my Spanish class we were learning about Spanish music and dances. One of the singers my classmate presented on was Enrique Iglesias and we all listened to his new popular song "Duele el Corazon." Audrey, Otilia and I wanted to sing something different than the usual American pop songs that we had sung so we decided to sing that song since it was fresh in our minds. Although I am learning Spanish here and I believe I speak it pretty well, it was difficult to sing because of the upbeat tempo of the song. Regardless, we killed it! It was one of my favorite songs that we have sung at George Payne and we plan on singing it again on our last Thursday in Barcelona. The other song we sang that night was in Romanian called Dragostea Din Tei by O-Zone. Otilia was born in Romania and still speaks Romanian although she has lived in the United States for many years now. I had only heard the song a couple of times before and i am not familiar with Romanian but Otilia encouraged Audrey and I to sing it with her. Although the lyrics were difficult at times, the chorus is super catchy and fun and the majority of the crowd knew it and sang along with us.
These Thursday nights have been some of my favorite nights spent in Barcelona.
